::Roundtable:: Murder in Mandate Palestine: The Case of Young Offenders

March 19, 2026

I. The Case: The Murder of Mayer Lubovitch in 1924 Mandate Palestine

At noon on 29 June 1924, Mohammed Saleh El-Ahmed[1] and Mahmud Mohammed Hamad were sitting in a shelter in the countryside somewhere near Qalqīliyya, Palestine, with witnesses Khalil Hautari and Mahmud Saleh when Mayer Lubovitch,[2] a Jew, passed them on a donkey as he traveled from Tel Yusuf to Tel Aviv. Lubovitch asked the men in the shelter in which direction Tel Aviv was. He received the requested information and continued on his way.

When Lubovitch had gone, Mohammed announced his intention to rob him, took down a sword from the rafters of the shelter, and set off. Shortly after, Mahmud followed despite Khalil trying to dissuade him. Mahmud took with him a pick or hoe (mankūsh). Thus, witnesses stated that both had gone after Mayer Lubovitch. There was no witness to the killing. The police found Lubovitch's body the next day, with three wounds in it caused by a sharp instrument, such as a sword. He had been killed and robbed.[3]

The Court of Criminal Assize (CCA) convicted both men of Mayer Lubovitch's killing under the third part of Article 174 of the Ottoman Penal Code (OPC),[4] which the British applied in Mandate Palestine until 1936 and which punishes a person who kills someone in the process of preparing, facilitating, or carrying out another offence—in this case robbery—with death. Both accused were sentenced to death.[5] The Court also fixed blood money (diya) for the slain Jew, which is an essential aspect of Islamic penal law, at £E140 for the deceased.[6]

Both convicted men turned to the Court of Appeal (CoA) and argued that they were under the age of eighteen[7] and thus entitled to benefit from the Young Offenders Ordinance of 1922 (YOO). After hearing the medical reports, the CoA held that Mohammed had not yet reached the age of eighteen. Accordingly, the Court set his death sentence aside and sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment.[8] With respect to Mahmud, the court held that he was over eighteen years of age and confirmed the death sentence based on Article 174 of the OPC.[9] The two medical reports, however, did not state the age of the two accused with certainty.[10]

Most of the judges of the CoA were in favor of the death sentence. Nevertheless, they recommended that High Commissioner Samuel use his prerogative of mercy to commute Mahmud's death sentence.[11] The Executive Council of the Government of Palestine confirmed the CoA's findings and commuted Mahmud's death sentence to penal servitude for life,[12] a harsher punishment than Mohammed's 15-year prison term. The severity of Mahmud's sentence was remarkable, given that the majority of the judges considered Mohammed, not Mahmud, the "leading person" in this crime.[13]

II. Why this case is interesting

In my archival research, this is one of only three criminal cases involving juvenile offenders for which I have so far found sources and detailed information about the procedure. The information for this case comes from a file held at the National Archives in London.[14] It contains the minutes of the two courts involved, the CCA and the CoA. The file also includes a medical report on the age of the two young perpetrators, a dispatch from the High Commissioner of Palestine to the Colonial Office in London, a letter from the Chief Justice regarding the case, and the minutes of the forty-seventh meeting of the Executive Council of the Mandate Government in Palestine, 12 December 1924, in which the final decision about the case was taken.

The case is interesting for a variety of reasons. It deals with a court case—a case of murder—in Mandate Palestine, which was decided on the still-applicable Ottoman Penal Code of 1854, revised in 1911. The British had discussed introducing a new Penal Code since the beginning of the Mandate, but it was not promulgated until 1936. Because of this, the Mandate Government issued many so-called Ordinances, such as the one quoted here: the Young Offenders Ordinance of 1922.

Both courts that looked into this case were stuffed with British and Palestinian-Arab judges. So the question is: what can we learn from this case regarding legislation and jurisdiction under colonial/Mandate rule? What does it tell us about evidence, proof, and procedure in a country—Palestine—under British rule? For this essay, [15] I focus on three aspects: (1) the (non)application of the laws of the Mandate government, (2) the role of the CoA, and (3) the arguments and decisions of the Mandate Government.

1. The legal setting and especially the (non)-application of the Young Offenders Ordinance (YOO)

The CCA convicted both young men of murder based on Article 147 of the OPC, ignoring British legislation in Palestine, i.e., the YOO of 1922. The YOO was issued to replace Article 40 of the OPC, which dealt with children and young offenders. The relevant provisions of the YOO include the following: Article 2, which states that there is generally no punishment for a person under nine years; Article 3, which stipulates that there is no death penalty, penal servitude, or imprisonment for children under thirteen; and Article 4, which replaces both the death penalty and penal servitude for life with imprisonment for persons below eighteen. Article 19 requests a medical check to determine the age.

It was only the CoA, not the CCA, that requested a medical report, in accordance with Article 19 of the YOO. The two doctors, both with Arab names, checked the physical state of each offender but not, as it would be usual today, their mental or psychological state.[16] In the end, both punishments were in accordance with the YOO. Mohammed's sentence of 15 years' imprisonment followed Article 4, while Mahmud's commuted sentence of penal servitude for life was the result of his age, which rendered the YOO inapplicable to his situation and exposed him, instead, to the full force of the law. However, given that the doctors in the medical report were unsure about the ages of both young men, and because he was actually "only" a follower and not the active participant, Mahmud's punishment of penal servitude for life must be considered very harsh. In England, for example, the Children Act had already been passed in 1908, which sought to avoid punishing children and young offenders as far as possible and instead focused on education and children's rights.[17]

2. The role of the courts

The CCA bench consisted of A.H. Webb, Thomas W. Haycraft, C.J. Izzat, and Mohammed Shafik[18] —names signaling equal representation of British and Palestinian-Arab judges. The CoA bench consisted of Chief Justice Corrie, G.R.W. Seton, Ali Jarallah, and Mustafa El Khalidi,[19] suggesting a similar balance of British and Palestinian-Arab judges. All judges seem to have agreed upon sentencing Mahmud to death. Nevertheless, a "recommendation by majority of judges" of the CoA asked High Commissioner Samuel to exercise his prerogative of mercy for Mahmud, not only because of the age issue, but because it had been Mohammed, and not Mahmud, who "took the leading part in the crime."[20]

The minutes indicate that the two defendants were assigned a lawyer only during the appeal proceedings. His name was Sheikh Suleiman El Taji.[21] He harshly criticized the CCA's procedures, seeing no reason to convict both men. According to El Taji, there was no evidence that Mahmud was armed, while the evidence regarding Mohammed was contradictory.[22] It was thus unclear which act each of the accused committed. In addition, he stated that both had been beaten: "The statements made by the accused were extorted from them by beating,"[23] as demonstrated by the lingering marks on the accused. He further argued that, in his opinion, the accused were both in fact under the age of eighteen, which meant that Articles 4 and 11 of the YOO were applicable.[24] Finally, in his opinion, diya was not applicable because the accused were not guilty of the murder.[25]

3. The arguments and decisions of the Mandate Government

Chief Justice Corrie apparently did not correctly convey his fellow judges' position or their request to exempt Mahmud from the death penalty, a least initially. In the first letter he forwarded, the argument that Mohammed was the one who "took the leading part in the crime" was missing. Corrie later apologized for the letter having been "incorrectly typed."[26] He himself viewed Mahmud as a co-perpetrator and therefore recommended maintaining the death penalty.[27]

The Executive Council changed the judgment to penal servitude, pointing to the "unanimous advice of the Council" but without any reference to the law or the YOO.[28] The minutes also contain the explicit regret of High Commissioner Samuel and the Executive Council that, despite the "prevalence of murder in Palestine," neither of the accused could be hanged.[29]

It is worth noting here that, despite his support for the death penalty in this case, High Commissioner Samuel had previously taken great pains as a representative of the Liberal Party in Great Britain to submit the Children Act to Parliament in 1908,[30] which scholars have elsewhere described as a "landmark piece of Edwardian social legislation."^[31] But why, then, did Samuel change his mind and replace the death sentence with penal servitude? An intriguing clue to this question can also be found in the Executive Council's protocol. Here we read: "On the other hand, it was suggested that, if the recommendation for mercy was not accepted, the refusal would deter the Palestinian judges from confirming a sentence of death in future cases."[32] So it seems that the Palestinian-Arab judges exerted pressure and threatened not to sign death sentences anymore if this one was not changed.

III. Conclusion

In my archival research, I have so far only come across two additional cases in which courts of first instance seem not to have taken the YOO—a piece of British legislation in Palestine—into account. This means that the Mandate judiciary ignored its own legislation, which is surprising in light of the Mandate Government's supposed aim of introducing the "rule of law" to Palestine.[33] At least in the case discussed here, the Mandate Government ultimately gave in to some pressure from the Palestinian-Arab judges and commuted the death sentence. This suggests that the group of Palestinian-Arab judges sitting on the bench with the British judges was able to exert some influence and demonstrate at least a certain degree of agency.

However, the Mandate Government's position towards the two young men can still be considered quite harsh and merciless: it initially ignored existing legislation in Palestine—the YOO—and did not give the two young men, whose ages could not be determined with certainty, a second chance, which was one of the main aims of the newly introduced legislation in England, the Children Act of 1908. Whether or not the identities of the victim as a Jew and the accused as Arabs played a role in the case's outcome is hard to know.

Notes:

[1] Murder of Mayer Lubovitch Case, after 29 June 1924, United Kingdom National Archives (hereafter TNA), London, Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 733/76/28. Names appear in this essay as quoted in the English sources; the correct Arabic transliterations are, respectively, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ al-Aḥmad, Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ḥamād, Khalīl Ḥawtharī, and Maḥmūd Ṣāliḥ.

[2] This is the name given in the document. There is no first name mentioned.

[3] See TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 411–12; 417–19; 430–31; sometimes the Arabic names are spelled differently.

[4] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 428, 432.

[5] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 428, 432.

[6] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 429.

[7] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 418.

[8] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 418.

[9] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 437.

[10] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 436.

[11] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 442.

[12] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 415.

[13] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 442.

[14] TNA, CO 733/76/28.

[15] I will deal with this intensively with my forthcoming book, "(De)colonizing" the Sharia? Penal Law in Mandate Palestine.

[16] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 435–36.

[17] Kate Bradley, Anne Logan and Simon Shaw, "Editorial: Youth and Crime: Centennial Reflections on the Children Act 1908," Crimes and Misdemeanors 3, no. (2009), 3–4.

[18] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 430–31, signature fol. 428; transliterated names: ʿIzzat Nammār, Muḥammad Shafīq Dajānī.

[19] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 442; transliterated names: ʿAlī Jārallāh, Muṣṭafā al-Khālidī.

[20] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 442, emphasis given.

[21] Shaykh Sulaymān al-Tājī.

[22] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 431.

[23] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 432.

[24] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 433.

[25] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 433.

[26] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 441.

[27] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 418.

[28] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 446; See also fol. 415.

[29] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 445.

[30] Kate Bradley, "Juvenile Delinquency and the evolution of the British juvenile courts c. 1900-1950," History in Focus 14 (2008), https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/welfare/articles/bradleyk.html, accessed 30 December 2025.

[31] Bradley, "Youth and Crime," 1.

[32] TNA, CO 733/76/28, fol. 446.

[33] Norman Bentwich, "The legal System of Palestine under the Mandate," Middle East Journal 2, no. 1 (1948): 42, 43.

Suggested Bluebook citation: Irene Schneider, Murder in Mandate Palestine: The Case of Young Offenders, Islamic Law Blog (Mar. 19, 2026), https://islamiclaw.blog/2026/03/19/roundtable-murder-in-mandate-palestine-the-case-of-young-offenders/.

Suggested Chicago citation: Irene Schneider, "Murder in Mandate Palestine: The Case of Young Offenders," Islamic Law Blog, March 19, 2026, https://islamiclaw.blog/2026/03/19/roundtable-murder-in-mandate-palestine-the-case-of-young-offenders/.